Marvel NOW! Relaunching The Marvel U

Left to right: Spider-Man, Hulk, Cable, Thor, Iron Man,
Nova, Marvel Girl/Jean Grey, Invicible Woman, Cyclops,
Wolverine, Captain America, Nick Fury jr. and Rocket
Raccon at the bottom 

A couple of weeks ago, I read the news that author Ed Brubaker,  who’s work include runs on titles such as Uncanny X-men,  Daredevil and Batman, would end his current work on Captain America in the near future. Now, Brubaker’s been writing Cap since 2004 and fans, myself included, all over the world are sad to see him leave this title and to some extent, I think a lot of us also worries about who is going to take over the series?  Brubaker’s decision to leave the title gave the idea to do a piece on his work on Captain America and his work in general. But let me tell you right now, the topic of this piece is so much more than one author’s departure. Shortly after the news of Brubaker’s farewell to the star-spangled Avenger, rumors about some sort of reboot or relaunch at Marvel started stirring. Talk like this has been going on for some time, rumors about various authors of Marvel books rotating aren’t exactly news, but now it’s confirmed: Marvel NOW! has been announced and to make sure there are no misunderstandings, this is a relaunch and not a reboot. Which means that unlike DC’s New 52, no continuity will be erased, but some authors and artists will rotate between titles, new titles will emerge and a number of titles will be renumbered starting out with Uncanny Avengers in October. Other confirmed titles so far are All New X-men written by Brian Michael Bendis (Avengers, New Avengers, Ultimate Spider-Man) and artist Stuart Immonen (New Avengers, Fear Itself, AvX), Avengers written by Jonathan Hickman (Secret Warriors, Fantastic Four, FF, S.H.I.E.L.D.) and the art will be handled by Jerome Opena (Uncanny X-Force, Punisher), New Avengers also by Hickman and with Steve Epting (Captain America, FF, Avengers) on art. These four are the ones confirmed, but news regarding several more titles is to be expected.
Remender is best known for his, in my opinion, great work on Uncanny X-force, Venom and Secret Avengers and Cassaday for his art on Astonishing X-men, written by Avengers director Joss Whedon. This new team/title will consist of members from both the Avengers and the X-men with Captain America, Wolverine, Thor, Havok, Scarlet Witch and Rogue as confirmed members so far and a couple of more has been promised. According to Remender, Uncanny Avengers will be a bridgebook, giving the reader the best of both worlds and since members come from both sides in the currently running Avengers vs. X-Men storyline, some tension will still exist between the members.  Personally I think it sounds good, great writer/artist and awesome characters, plus it addresses an issue that was brought up in AvX # 1. When Cap confronts Scott Summers/Cyclops about the coming of the phoenix force, Summers accuses Cap and the Avengers of never standing up for mutants. Cap. America argues that he kept a distance due to respect of Cyclops, the latter being the leader of the X-men and sort of a spokesperson/”leader” to Mutants.  To a certain degree, there’s some truth in his accusation which is why it does have an impact on Cap and results in him forming the new team.
It’s definitely a book I’m going to check out and the same can be said about the rest of the confirmed titles I mentioned earlier. Both Hickman and Bendis are some of my favorite writers, with Hickman probably being the best. His work on Secret Warriors blew me away; it was the kind of story that keeps building itself up to something more and bigger than you originally thought.  Anybody interested in a comic with a little less bright-colored superheroes   and a little more spy/conspiracy/thousand-year-old-secrets kind of story, should definitely give it a read. But be sure to include his S.H.I.E.L.D. series if you do pick up Secret Warriors. It’s not mandatory, but it will make the experience even better. That and it’s really fun seeing people like Leonardo Da Vinci, Isac Newton, Nikola Tesla, Nostradamus and Michelangelo alongside Nathaniel Richards and Howard Stark (fathers of Reed Richards/Mr. Fantastic and Tony Stark/Iron Man), agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., as part of a superhero/secret agency comic book. Hickman on two Avengers titles is, in short, a dream come true. There’s no one better to take over the title after Bendis and I can’t wait to see where he’ll take the team.

As I said, more announcements are expected to come on other titles and rumors say these might include Iron Man getting a new creative team, same with Captain America of course since Brubaker is leaving, Fantastic Four and Wolverine too as well as new runs of Guardians of The Galaxy and Nova.  In general, this relaunch sounds exciting to me, I think it’s unnecessary to change the numbering of the titles, but it doesn’t really matter to me. It might attract new readers, which is great and the most important thing is that no continuity is erased. Costume designs are also going to be different on a lot of characters as seen in the top photo. Except for Rocket Raccoon looking pretty damn ridiculous, I think most of it looks good, but I’ll need to see more to tell for sure of course.  Marvel NOW! will be a progress that takes place from October and continuing into February so there’s probably a lot more of new stuff to come and I’ll write about whatever I find interesting in here.

Mo